Whoever said birthdays were all candles and party hats never dared enter my head

Today is my birthday. I'm 38 years old.

Let me start by saying, 38 is not old. I don't feel old, though my knees might think differently, and compared to the lifespan of the average American woman, I'm in the prime of my life. But I can't help but compare myself, and where I am in my life right now, to where my mother was at this age.

My mother was a child when she got married, she was barely nineteen and less than a month after her 20th birthday she had me. Which means, when my mother was my age, she had an 18 year old daughter entering college. Therefore, adding it all up and carrying the one, I am old enough to have a child in college. But fast forward twenty years and I have a daughter entering kindergarten. My mind, it is significantly boggled.

I don't know how to process this. It has less to do with the biological possibility of having a child old enough to be considered a legal adult and more to do with grappling with my feelings about my mom and the way she and my father raised me compared to how I'm raising my children.

My parents were so young and naive and without modern conveniences like the internet to help them with their parenting choices (there is some sarcasm in that last part). For better or worse, they relied heavily on their families, specifically their parents from a far more removed generation, to lend guidance and share wisdom.

I don't agree with most of what they did, but here I am today - the first of my family to attend and graduate college. I've never been arrested and have never mixed up in drugs or criminal activity. Whether it was nature or nurture, and regardless of the negative things which I really don't feel like getting into, something went right.

My husband and I have years and experiences my parents didn't have. We have the education and the income they only dreamed of. Time will tell if the outcome is any better but I know what I'll be wishing for when I blow out the candles on my cake.

We interupt this blog with a special "I Hate Mother's Day" announcement...

I still don't like Mother's Day very much.

However...

There are others who hate it with a white hot fiery passion for reasons only they can explain and those people deserve to be recognized.

*getting on my (wee, tiny) soapbox*

*really, it's more like a palette than a box*

*okay fine, it's a bath mat*

Last year I wrote this post about my feelings about this upcoming Sunday.

(If you haven't figured out what this Sunday is, that would be Mother's Day. Please catch up and don't forget to hold onto your travel buddy's hand. Wouldn't want you to get lost again. Poor dear.)

Since then, many, many people have Googled the words "I Hate Mother's Day" and have ended up here. To you random web searchers, may I offer you a hearty welcome and a scone? Because gurrl, we've all got some issues to work out, now don't we?

As I said last year, I am more than happy to open up this safe place as a virtual support group for fellow pseudo-holiday-for-those-of-the-maternal-persuasion haters. Please, if you're here because you found your fingers flying over your keyboard in a fit of rage, feel free to vent 'til your heart's content.

(Ooh, that rhymed. Sweet.)

You obviously need a space to express your feelings about your mom, your wife, your husband/boyfriend/baby daddy, or yourself and motherhood as a whole. I applaud you for having the guts to write it out, even if you did so anonymously. I hope it helped a little. Here, that scone wasn't very big. Have a cookie.

If, however, you feel more comfortable lurking in the shadows might I suggest you have a gander at some other, very passionate comments on that post and know you are not alone.

Or if you're one of those well-adjusted types - I hear rumors of that strange breed walking amongst us, those with not a hint of chip on their shoulder or darkness in their heart - maybe you could impart some wisdom upon those of us who would like a glimpse into the mind of someone who doesn't go through the day with a grudge, a whimper or a sigh.

As for me, when I used the word "hate" I may have overstated my feelings. Mother's Day makes me sad and I hate to be sad, but I can't hate a day set aside to honor those women who nurture and love those in their care either through biology or other avenues. I can hate the hype but I don't hate the day. Besides, today is beautiful and it's hard to muster such strong feelings of loathing when the sun is shining and the air is warm.* And my husband sent me cupcakes. Diamonds may be a girl's best friend but cupcakes make me smile too. They don't make me sparkly but they make my stomach happy.

So please, go, vent, bitch, cry... Whatever you need to do. Or leave kind, reassuring words. It's all very cathartic, ain't it?



*If you're wondering where the glass-is-half-empty Tania is, come see me tomorrow when it's dark and stormy and I have a cupcake tummy ache. I don't think this life is beautiful crap is going to stick.

Need

CC and I went to a local children's store today to exchange a hat and mitten set I had bought for Chicky. Despite my insistence she stop growing, she seemed to have had a growth spurt and needed a larger size. We were just going to run in, get the next size up, and leave because I had many more errands to do before we needed to head back to preschool for pickup when a family caught my attention on my way to the hat display.

There was a woman about my age with her two young children, the oldest barely out of infancy and the little one around 4 months old, accompanied by someone I assumed to be the woman's mother. The grandmother was pushing the double stroller, casually picking up whatever full price item she liked and adding them to the already huge pile of clothing hanging from the stroller's handle, while the younger woman looked over the racks of discounted 6 month-sized outfits.

"Do the kids have matching Christmas pajamas yet?" she asked her daughter, and without waiting for an answer she added two more pairs of pajamas to her stack. The daughter, seeing what her mother did, sighed with what seemed to be exasperation and went back to looking at the sales rack, shaking her head. She seemed resigned to her mother's shopping spree.

Try as I might I couldn't stop my throat from constricting and my eyes from tearing up. It was exactly something my mom would have done. I could easily put myself in that woman's place and my mom in her mom's. Mom would have spoiled her granddaughter's silly and would have ignored all my pleas to stop buying them things they didn't need. Secretly, of course, I would have loved every second, knowing how much pleasure she would get from dressing up the girls. She would have bought them little trinkets for no reason other than she saw something they would have liked and they were never far from her mind. It would never be about the purchase but what she could do to make her grandchildren happy. All at once I was overcome with longing for the inevitable bickering between us. Five hundred different emotions hit me all at one time.

I coughed, dabbing at my eyes while I knelt down pretending to look at a satin holiday dress I had no intention of buying, willing myself to not turn into a huge puddle of tears in the middle of the store. Sweat started to pool between my shoulder blades and behind my neck. I was alternately furious at the hand life had dealt us and overcome with loss, both for me and my girls. I had a hard time seeing through my anger at the younger woman. I couldn't think straight because I was too busy imagining myself in her place. Honestly, I wanted to shove her for not seeing how good she had it.

Leaving the store seemed like a very good idea at that moment. In my haste I almost forget to grab the larger hat and I would have if I hadn't snagged the arm of my coat on the rack as I rushed by. With it in hand, I pushed the stroller containing a very tired and cranky CC toward the register and waited for the lone sales associate to ring up the three customers in front of me. While we waited the grandmother and her overflowing stroller got in line behind us and CC, the social creature that she is, waved furiously at the woman.

"Hi!" she called. "Hi!!"

"Hi to you," the grandmother replied with a smile. "What a pretty hat you have. Did your mommy get you that hat?"

"Hi!" CC answered. She put her hands in front of her eyes. "Boo!" She cackled at her own game.

The older woman laughed and returned the gesture. "Peek-a-boo!" CC roared with laughter.

I didn't say anything, just smiled and tried to stop the prickly feeling behind my eyes from coming back. So many things my mom missed.

Finally it was my turn at the register. Beside it was a display of fleecy holiday pajamas. Normally I'm put off by those displays, obviously intended to entice the shoppers in line to put more in their cart, but this time I grabbed two pairs, size 12 months and 4T, and put them on the counter with the hat.

"Did you find everything you were looking for today?" the girl asked me.

You don't have what I need in this store, I wanted to say.

"Yes," I answered. In a shaky hand, I signed my name on the credit card machine.

The grandmother smiled at me as I gathered up the shoe CC had thrown while waiting for me. "She's beautiful," she said. "I bet she'll look really cute in those pajamas."

Tears were threatening again. "Thanks," I mumbled over my shoulder as I turned to leave.

I placed the bag with the Christmas pajamas on the handle of our stroller while CC yelled, "Bye bye!" all the way out the door.

I hate Mother's Day and I don't think I'm the only one

I hate Mother's Day.

There, I said it. I hate this damn "holiday". I hate being reminded that my mom isn't around anymore. I hate every PR pitch about it that finds its way into my inbox (but I do take a perverse satisfaction out of deleting each and every one without even opening them. Take that, suckas.). I hate the media blitz surrounding this upcoming Sunday. I hate the television commercials with the happy smiling family and the "You rock, Mom!" recordable greeting cards. I hate going into a Hallmark store and being assaulted with colorful drawings of tulips and sappy sentimental reminders to "Remember Mom!!" with multiple exclamation points. I even hate the exclamation points because they're associated with the sentiment. And I generally like exclamation points. But this week I'd like to forget that bit of punctuation exists.

Yeah, that's hate for you.

I've sat down this week to try to write at least 10 different posts about Mother's Day and they all went straight into the trash after the first few painful lines. I've tried to write one post in particular, even working on four or five drafts of a story I feel needs to be written, only to put it aside to revisit at another, less brittle time. Mostly I've just skulked around the internet or avoided it, and other forms of communication, all together until I can act less like a person you'd like to jab with a pointy stick. That should happen sometime on Monday.... Maybe. I make no promises so have your pointy sticks ready just in case.

While I spent this week sighing and sulking I got to thinking - I can't be alone in my hatred for Mother's Day, can I? There must be others out there who feel the same. I cannot believe I'm the only one because, dude, that would be bad.

So I decided to start an online I Hate Mother's Day support group. Mostly to make myself feel better but also, because I love you. Yes you, over there throwing darts at that FTD florist mailer.

How about it? If you hate Mother's Day for ANY REASON let me know in the comments. And please leave your reason for hating it. Maybe your husband buys crap gifts, or no gifts at all, for you and you're pretty close to shoving him in front of a bus. Maybe your wife makes a ridiculously big deal about being honored and you'd like to shove her in front of a bus. Maybe your mother is a shrew and it kills you to suck it up and play nice for one day out of the year and you'd like to.... You know. Bus. Shove. Splat.

(All metaphorically speaking, of course. We at Chicky Chicky Baby do not endorse the shoving of loved ones in front of buses. Sub-compacts, maybe. But not buses.)

Whatever the reason, leave it here and I'll keep an ongoing link list of those (or do it anonymously, this is a safe place) who dare to say:

"I hate Mother's Day and I'm not going to take it anymore!!"

Hey there, I just used exclamation points. I must be feeling better already.

(Even if you slightly dislike Mother's Day, you can share that too. Misery meet company, company meet misery. Aw look at that, they're hitting it off already.)

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Wow, who knew so many of you hated Mother's Day?

Hello to all of you who Googled "I Hate Mother's Day" and found yourself here. You're in good company so even if you don't feel like leaving a comment (and I know you're there, I can see you. Hi! *waving*), pull up a seat and grab a cup of joe (It's dark, strong and slightly bitter - just like I like my men) because there are a LOT of us.

As promised, these are the people (so far, it's not too late to join the party) who had no problem declaring their hatred for Mother's Day, not including the bunches of commenters who decided to be anonymous (Hey, they have their reasons. I don't judge.):

Misconceptions about Conception
The New Girl
Jodifur
The Redneck Mommy
Flutter
My Bliss
Outdoor Dogs
Amber
Foop

And these are the ones who are just kind of "Eh, whatever. Sometimes it sucks, sometimes it doesn't. Sometimes I have trouble deciding what I want for lunch":

Red Headed Wonder
Southern Domestic Goddess
All Things BD
A Moment Captured
KittenPie
Write From Karen
Barking Mad
Spinning Yellow
BOSSY

Tomorrow is another day

Today is not a good day.

Today is that day, but five years later. Five years. I can hardly believe it.

In those five years I've had two beautiful girls who would be the light of my mother's life, and she theirs. Life is not fair. Life is a bitch wrapped in not fair clothing. Today anyway.

I have a story to write, a story I said I would never write, but I feel I need to. But I don't know how to write it. Don't you hate it when bloggers say things like that? Yeah, sorry.

My dad and grandmother are coming over in an hour. My father, who divorced from my mother - or vice versa, it was her idea - a couple of years before she died. His fiance will be with him. Not that I mind that he's getting married again. But you know, it's weird today. And we didn't plan for him to come on this day in particular, it just worked out that way. Things will be slightly awkward if anyone dares bring up what day it is. My Nana will get melancholy and I will get defensive. I don't want to talk about it with them. I don't know why.

I would rather drive home and sit at her grave. It's a warm day for February, it would be nice to dress Chicky in her rain boots to visit what would undoubtedly be a muddy cemetery and let her run along the gravestones. We'd play hide and seek. We'd lay roses on her grave - one for her, one for me, and one for each of the girls. I haven't done that since there were only three roses to lay down. I owe her a visit even though I am with her every day in my mind. I would tell stories about her to my oldest girl even though I wouldn't want to bring up those memories. I would do it because I would be forced to and sometimes I need to be forced to do difficult things. Sometimes it is good for me.

I would rather today be any other day. In a short time it will be but the pain will still be there. So what's the point? I don't know.

I just needed to write it out, you know?

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In happier news, I'm over at Alpha Mom today. You should visit because I'm trying to keep you and your kids safe. Just looking out for you. You're welcome.

Revelation

Chicky and I were enjoying a rare quiet moment together this morning. We were looking at pictures from my wedding day and she was showing an interest in them she had never displayed before. She was enjoying pointing out everyone she knew when we got to a series of photographs that made her pause.


"Who's that?"

"That's my mom."

"What's her name?"

"Her name was Brenda."

"Oh. Brenda." She let this information sink in for awhile. "Why is she crying?"

"Well, Puss, that's kind of hard to explain."

"I think she's crying because she loves you so much."

As I sat there with my arm around her and my chin on her head, she didn't see the tears forming in my eyes. She won't know for a long time that her sentence hit a tender spot. She won't know for a long time that truer words were never spoken, that she was exactly right. But I didn't realize it at the time the picture was taken.

"Mom, can I watch a show now?"

And as she climbed off the couch to fetch the remote, I knew the moment was gone. Which, for now, was probably a good thing.

Cancer, Cancer. Whatcha gonna do? Whatcha gonna do when it comes for you?

I've had this post kicking around for a couple of weeks, but with Lisa's news yesterday this seems like a good time to post this.

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When I was pregnant with C.C. I had an appointment with a genetic counselor because, in the prime of my life at age 35, I was classified as a woman of "advanced maternal age" and I hadn't yet decided if I wanted to go through amniocentesis.

There was nothing in my or Mr. C's family history that caused any alarm for our yet unborn baby but while mapping out my family history red flags popped up for me. A bunch of red flags. Big, crimson ones that didn't have any cute welcomes beckoning to me like "Eat Here. Early bird specials, including dessert, starting at just $7.99", "Half price apps. after 7pm", not even my favorite "Half price drink specials Tues. and Weds." or "99 cent draughts". Just scary red flags with the word "Cancer" written on them in big block letters.

My mother died of colon cancer four years ago. My grandmother, my mother's mother, died of ovarian cancer, a related form of disease, last year. And years ago my Gram's half sister died from breast cancer, a cancer related to ovarian. It was like following a daisy chain. Unfortunately, I'm the half hitch and from the looks of things I'm barely hanging on. One tug and the whole thing will let go, metaphorically speaking.

Metaphors make the cancer easier to take, didn't you know? Follow the yellow brick cancer trail! Follow the yellow brick cancer trail! Follow, follow, follow, follow...

I had my own brush with cancer ten years ago. I had an aggressive form of the HPV virus and within a year I went from clean pap smears to Oh my CHRIST. Get thee to a doctor NOW or you'll get THE CANCER.

I was treated. Cells were removed. My feet were in the stirrups more times than I'd like to remember but everything worked out fine. Unfortunately, this diagnosis coincided with my mom finding out her cancer was progressing faster than had hoped and major surgery had just been scheduled for her. It was a dark time in my life.

My mom was diagnosed with colon cancer when she was just 44 years old and since there is a genetic link, doctors told my sister and me that we would have to start being tested when we reached the age of 35, or roughly ten years before the age my mother was diagnosed. Let me tell you, I'm not looking forward to some physician I don't know shoving a camera up my butt to have a look see but I'm going to do it. I have to.

But before then I have another appointment with a genetic counselor in September. We'll chat, maybe talk about the good old days when my mom's insides were being ravaged by cancer and about my grandmother who refused to be tested even though her oldest daughter died a horrible death at a ridiculously young age.

I'm not sure but if you research my last name you may find it's English for "Ostrich who sticks his head in the sand because if you don't know bad things are coming then they'll just go away. LA LA LA LA LA".

After that, who knows? Maybe they'll recommend genetic testing to determine if I'm, in fact, predisposed for the big C. And that, my friends, scares the beejebus out of me.

I'll get tested. I'll go every year if I need to. I'll drink that vile liquid that will clean my insides out better than Roto Router on a clogged toilet (Oh the symbolism!). I'll bitch to my doctor that I will not have any of those other tests that are only good about 10% of the time and just put on the pith helmet already and grab your pick ax because it's time to go SPEELUNKING! I'll fight with insurance companies who probably don't want to pay for this procedure for someone my age. I'll do all of that...

But do I really want to know, really, truly know, that the damn cancer is coming to get me? Would you? How much information is too much? If you were me, would you take a cue from my dear, ostrich-like grandmother and not want to know anything or would you face it head on?

Ha! I scoff in the face of cancer! HA HA HA H... *cough* *gag* *whimper*

Would you willingly get a test that would tell you as definitively as possible that if the screenings fail (which they don't usually) you'll end up with this disease? And if you did, what would you do with the information?

The year nobody dies

My mother died four years ago today. Four years is not enough time to diffuse grief. I don't know if there is a set number of years that will do that but I know 1460 some odd days isn't enough time to make the pain go away.

It's been especially hard to get over her death because since she passed away in 2004 there has been a series of deaths in my family. In 2005 it was my paternal grandfather. In 2006 my maternal grandfather. And in 2007 my maternal grandmother. Not to mention assorted distant family members and friends of the family. There's been so much grieving I forget what it feels like to live without that constant cloud of hurt that lingers. There has been no time to heal.

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They say bad news comes in threes. I don't know if that's entirely true but I do know that good news follows good news and bad news tends to follow bad.

I remember the day I found out my mom's cancer had come back. Or more to the point, it had never really left and now it was really bad. She was going to need another extremely invasive, time consuming surgery, which meant a long recovery time but no guarantees it would actually work.

A while later I got a call from the women's clinic I went to. They had found something in my last pap smear that was very concerning. I had level four dysplasia, one small step away from cervical cancer. It was very aggressive and if I didn't have the offending cells removed I would be in a heap of trouble.

I lost it. I started crying on the phone which is not like me at all. I can handle a lot but that much at one time... It did me in. I was inconsolable for the rest of the day though I told nobody about my problem. I needed to concentrate on one stress at a time.

In the end I was fine. Things were taken care of and I healed. My mom had her surgery and it was as awful as we feared, but she pulled through and lived another four years or so. But to this day even though I can absorb stresses in my life like a sponge and seem like I've got my shit together it just takes that one thing to tip the scale and have everything come tumbling out on top of me.

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Fisher had a CAT scan today, today of all days. After a horrendous weekend where he did nothing but vomit and subsequently lost five pounds from his 75 pound frame, refused his food and generally looked nothing like the dog I knew just a few weeks before, it was decided he needed more tests STAT.

The vet is still not sure what's wrong with the poor dog. What she could tell me was though she didn't know what it was she did know what it wasn't. No masses, spleen looked good, blah blah blah. Then she mentioned lymphoma. There is a possibility of lymphoma.

And treatment options if it came to that.

And words like "aggressive chemotherapy" and "six to 18 months".

And I lost it, just a little, but this time I kept it all inside. I waited until we hung up before letting the tears fall.

He needs a biopsy but his platelets level is so low there is concern of him bleeding out. The bladder stones are still there but they are not a result of the existing liver problem, as she first thought. His white blood cell count is going crazy. He has elevated, very elevated, ALT levels and some other initials that I can't quite remember because I started to zone out.

It was all too much to take on a day that already was too hard.

Just too much.

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I was speaking with my aunt the other day, my mom's closest sister in both age and relationship. She's the one who always keeps in touch and makes sure we don't lose contact with each other when the rest of the family could care less.

She mentioned that she really needed 2008 to be an easier year. The last four have been so hard and she needs to rest. We all need to rest and heal.

She said she really needed 2008 to be the year that nobody dies. I couldn't agree more.

A moment of great weakness

My mother loved children. As the secretary of a small Catholic elementary school for almost two decades and the aunt of a dozen nieces and nephews she had lots of opportunities to engage in some serious 8 year old dramas and lots of boo boo kissing. The kids in "her school" loved her in return and from the moment they started school they learned to call my mom by her first name and forget that the proper way to address an adult, especially one with such power as the school secretary, was with a "Mrs." or "Miss" (almost all who worked in the school were female). My mom never wanted it any different. She encouraged this familiar relationship and no administrator dared fight her on it.

Christmas was a boon in my mom's house. She came home for days before the Christmas break with arm loads of treats and treasures from the kids and their parents. The final day before the week long break she had to use a large cardboard box to bring home her gifts. Gifts of chocolates from the local gourmet chocolatier were shuttled to her freezer to store for later because she received so many they would go bad before having a chance to eat them all. Her Christmas tree showcased many of the beautiful decorations that were given to her. I now have some of those ornaments; quite a few of them have crudely scrawled, childish handwriting on stickers on the back: "To B__, Love Jeremy", or "For B___, Merry Christmas - the Johnsons".

She was loved and reciprocated that love. But the message she always gave my sister and me when it came time to talk about our own children was, "I'm too young to be a grandmother".

And she was. But more importantly, we were too young to mothers. At least she thought so. As a woman who gave birth to her first baby less than a month after her 20th birthday (that would be me) she knew from being too young to have kids.

Now she's gone. She never got a chance to be a grandmother.

But she would have loved her grandchildren.

She would have loved them fiercely and protectively. She would have swooped them away when she came to visit and covered them in a thousand kisses. She would have been the best grandmother.

If there had never been such a thing as cancer she would be here right now, taking care of me and amusing Chicky. She would love her granddaughter and been excited for the next grandbaby to come. If there had never been such a thing as cancer I wouldn't have to fumble for the right name to give her whenever Chicky asks who the woman in the picture in her room is. Grammy B? Grandma? I never know what to tell Chicky and I certainly never know what to tell her when she asks where my mommy is.

I feel cheated. I feel like my kids have been cheated. And I'm very angry about that fact. Angry doesn't even seem right - I'm pissed off. Gyped. Got the short end of the stick. But Chicky and this baby who is causing me so many problems right now are the real losers in this shitty deal. Hundreds of children's lives were touched by my mother but my kids will never know her. They need her, and they won't even know how much.

But more importantly right now, I need her. I need her so much it hurts. I need my Mom.

Motherhood means sometimes having to say you're sorry

This post was written not only for Girls Gone Child call for good mothers but also for the PBN blog blast - in conjunction with Light Iris - "What makes you a mother?" Go to either PBN or Light Iris to find out how you can enter to win a fabulous prize.

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There we sat that evening, my mother and me, a year or two before she died, in one of those pop-up, camper-trailers. We were parked in the middle of a college running track, our designated spot for our Relay for Life team. With us that night was my sister, Mom's boyfriend, and a couple of her closest friends. Our small group sat in the dark, our emotions already running high from all that was going on outside the zip-up walls of the camper, and we talked. We talked not like a mother and her friends would with her children, but as adults. We shared stories, laughed at past foibles, and gossiped. We offered details about ourselves that, if not for the intimate setting and the perceived safety that darkness offers, we might have never shared.

As often happened when my mom and I were together our chatter led us to reminiscing about my tumultuous teen years. It was a saga I was tired of hearing; how I was a little shit and caused my poor, suffering mother years of frustration and pain.

The abridged version for those of you who care: From the age of 12 to 17 my mother and I, more alike than we wanted to admit, were at war. The details aren't important. The bottom line is we both wanted control of my life and neither was willing to give an inch. She was over-protective to a fault and I did more than my fair share of testing the limits of my boundaries.

As far as my relationship with my mother is concerned I wouldn't do much to change those years. I was, after all, a teenager learning to be independent. And she was a mother struggling with the maturation of her first born. Neither one of us knew what the hell we were doing.

But that night... I don't know if it was her advancing illness, her sense of mortality, or the intimacy of the setting, but instead of poking fun of the 16 year old me my mother, the woman who had tried to keep me pinned down like a butterfly in a shadow box- presumably for my own good - apologized to me.

I think it is safe to say that there won't be many moments in my life as profound as the night my mother told me she was sorry for not always doing the right thing when it came to raising me. How many of you have heard an apology like that from your parents? Yeah, those four or five years when all we did was fight and all the tears we shed and the months we spent not talking? I royally screwed up. Sorry about that.

Those weren't the words she used, of course, but I don't really remember what her exact words were. I remember looking to her friend for confirmation. My eyes said, Did I really just hear my mother tell me she was wrong? Her friend nodded in agreement. They had obviously talked about this before.

My mother felt she was wrong and she was sorry.

She wasn't wrong, however. She made some big mistakes but they were all in my best interest. I wasn't wrong, either. Because of my mother's apology I know that now. I was a young, stupid kid filled with hormones. But to hear this woman who had held such power over me admit that she made mistakes, took the wrong stance, was unfair at times... that really knocked me for a loop. It didn't set things right entirely but it changed how I viewed our relationship.

Now I'm the mother and I screw up all the time. If there's a hard and fast right way to parent I haven't found it yet, so I'm bound to make more and that's just the way it is. I'm not infallible and I'm learning to live with that. Hell, I'm learning to embrace that fact. Just because I have some pretty stupid lapses in reason does not make me a bad mother. If I can learn from those mistakes it will, eventually, make me a damn good mother. And it didn't make my mom a bad mother, either. I mentioned before that she wasn't the best but she was pretty damn good. She had to have been or I wouldn't have turned out as well as I did.

Before she died my Mom gave me a few very important gifts, one being that apology. I was finally able to see my mother as the fragile person she was and that made me feel so empowered. Not because I saw her as weak but because she had the strength to admit that she was flawed. She was a mother and there is no place for perfection in motherhood. In that moment, when she let go and dropped her guard, she taught me what she couldn't all those years before. Life is not about hiding from what scares us, it's about making mistakes. How else do we learn?

One day, when she's old enough to understand, I will begin telling my daughter that I make mistakes. Not just small ones but big gaffes. I don't want her to wait until she's thirty, after she's lived decades questioning herself and her choices. I want her to know that I mess up but that I try to learn from every misstep and poor decision. I want her to know that all good mothers do. I'm human. I'm a mother, a good mother, and those mistakes will help me be the best mother I can be.

The woman behind the blogger

Last night after class a co-worker asked if I wanted to go with her to a drop-in Rally-O class at another training center. I was all for it - since I've been slacking in actually working with my own dogs - until she mentioned that it was on Sunday evening. I declined as it is Mother's Day on Sunday. That was when it hit me.

It's Mother's Day on Sunday.

It's almost Mother's Day already?

Wow, that snuck up on me. Yeah, I've seen all the commercials and read a lot of blog posts about Mother's Day - I even wrote a Mother's Day post of my own for the Blog Exchange - but the actual day always seemed to be coming up. A way's away. Soon, but not now. Well now is almost here.

(There's a hint for you, Mr. C., you've still got a couple of days left until the big day. Don't blow it. You remember last year, don't you?)

I've decided that in honor of Mother's Day, the day we celebrate those women who bravely pushed a living being out of their girly parts and those who spent much time and effort adopting a child, here at Chicky Chicky Baby the rest of this week is all about Moms.

(Which is much better than me talking about my phlegm, don't you think? I will refrain from writing about the loogies I can hock up at whim, their consistency and color. You're welcome.)

I was recently tagged for a "10 things about me" meme by the suspiciously happy Smiling Mom (Seriously, lady, why are you always smiling? What's the secret?) and rather than talk about myself again I'm going to tell you 10 things that I think you should know about my mom.

Why should you care about my mom? First off, if you have to ask that than you can just go now. Seriously. How rude. But second, she was a woman that people just wanted to know and since she's not here with us this is my way of introducing you to the woman who I called Mom.

10 things about Grammy Chicky

1. I'm ashamed to say (ooh, there's a good place to start) that I didn't always call her "Mom". During my teen years, when my Mom and I hated each other, my best friend and I came up with a nickname for my mother. The rather cumbersome moniker "Creature with the Fangs".

We were so witty.

The name was eventually shortened to just "Fang". My friend and I thought ourselves not only terribly witty but also horribly clever for keeping this from her. Of course, my Mom (Fang) knew but she never said anything. Until years later when I was in my 20s, and we were on speaking terms again, and she let it slip that she knew. And she smirked when she said that she knew. It must of hurt a bit, hearing her first born call her names, yet she still found the stupid humor in a couple of 15 year olds trying to pull a fast one over on her and failing miserably. I can respect a woman who can laugh at her child being a dumbass.

2. She loved to dance. The woman was a dancing fiend. She wasn't particularly good at it but she was infectious. If she was dancing then you wanted to dance with her. Unless you were a sullen 15 year old, calling her stupid nicknames, and embarrassed by her exuberance.

At one of my uncles' weddings my mother was on the dance floor surrounded by people all of them doing the Twist. She was so busy giving that dance her all that she didn't notice that she had Twisted herself right out of her slip. When she did notice she just stepped out of it, kicked it to the side and kept on dancing with all of her family cheering her on. She didn't have time to be embarrassed, there was dancing to be done. It's been almost 20 years and that story still gets brought up at family get-togethers.

3. Mom had just turned 20 when she had me. She was just about to turn 24 when she had my sister. When I asked her why she had us so young Mom told me that the only thing she had ever wanted to be growing up was a mother so as soon as she could she started a family, and that simple fact used to bug the hell out of me. A mother? Just a mother? No other, greater, aspirations? A year or two before she died, after spending almost two decades working as a secretary for a Catholic elementary school, she told us that now that her children were grown she really wished she could have been a teacher. I think she would have been a great teacher, but at the risk of sounding cheesy and selfish, there's a part of me that's glad we didn't have to share her.

4. She was obsessive, almost anal, about keeping a clean house and she was not an animal lover. In this way I am my father's daughter.

5. Mom wasn't the type of person who was quick with a dirty joke, though I suspect she secretly liked them as much as the next guy, but she had a streak of gallows humor in her. She always said when she died she wanted to be buried upside down. So every who came to visit her grave could kiss her ass.

6. "Sun worshiper" isn't a strong enough term to attribute to my Mom. As soon as the weather got warm enough you would find Mom floating on a raft in the pool or lying in a deck chair soaking up the sun. By the end of the summer, thanks to her Portuguese heritage, she'd be as brown as a nut. Also in this way I am my father's daughter. Damn English genes.

7. Mom had a gap between her front teeth that was never fixed. Since she was one of eleven children there wasn't the money for dental work and she was sometimes ashamed of it. Not that it took away from her beauty. But, consequently, she didn't smile that much in pictures. But when she smiled, either in real life or in front of the camera, you felt like she had just given you a gift.

And if you feel like I'm falling into a pit of cheese let me just tell you that when she wasn't smiling she sometimes looked like she was about to bite your head off. In this way I am my mother's daughter.

8. After a long, unsatisfying marriage that ended badly (and that's all I'm going to say about my parent's relationship) my mother - a huge Red Sox fan - finally met her soul mate, a wonderful man who just happened to be a Yankees fan. Ain't that a kick in the head? At her funeral he gave the most beautiful speech and in this speech he mentioned how that year - 2004 - should be the year that the Red Sox would finally win the World Series. And I think he was genuinely pleased when they did. Now that's love.

9. Whenever he wrote her a note or gave her a card, my Mom's boyfriend would end it with the words "Here, There and Everywhere". I can't listen to that song without crying.



10. She wasn't the best mother, she wasn't the worst mother. She messed up a lot and I didn't make things easy on her. But she would have been the best grandmother ever.


It's sort of hard to wrap up a meme like this one gracefully so I'm just going to move on to the tags. I'm tagging Redneck Mommy, Sarah, and Lawyer Mama.

2004

There are some years that have more significance than others for some people. They are the years whose significance we never forget. The year of our birth or the year we graduated from high school, for instance. Or the year you got married, had a baby, last fit into your skinny jeans. We remember the songs on the radio and the movies that were popular. Hell, we even remember the weather patterns (if you have weather, that is). For me 2004 is one of those years whose importance outweighs most others.

It was the year the Patriots won the Super Bowl and the Red Sox won the World Series.

It was the year Mr. C and I took our last trip to Italy for some time, I suppose. Because...

It was the year I got pregnant.

And it was the year my mother died.

Three years ago, this week. In 2004.

They say that time has a way of helping us forget. Of healing all wounds. Enabling us to go on. As time goes on memories get soft around the edges. But honestly there are some things about that week leading up to my mother's death that I will never forget and I have no desire to do so.

It was unseasonably warm for the end of February in Massachusetts. The irony that my sun worshiping mother would choose to leave this earth on such a balmy day was not lost on me. It seemed fitting that she would break free from her shackles of pain and sickness on a day when her spirit could dance in the warm breeze, unencumbered by morphine, chemotherapy and cancer.

I'll never forget how her cool, dry hand felt on my cheek the last time she looked at me, the last time she really saw me without the veil of impending death covering her eyes. She said goodbye without saying a word, and though she lingered for a few more days she was never the same. She was never really there with us but instead in that space between life and death. I still lean my head into that phantom touch. I close my eyes and imagine she's still there in front of me. I imagine that I let myself cry in front of her instead of turning away to hide my pain. And I remember her face and her look that said she was at peace with what was going to happen.

The next few days are a blur of visitors, nurses and medications. Until the day she died. That day I remember vividly. And that's my memory to keep, for myself and my daughter one day. I may not remember which of her old friends came to pay their respects at her wake - in my defense there were hundreds of people there - but I'll remember each and every hour of the day she could no longer fight the cancer that was ravaging her body.

Is it a coincidence that my mother, the Red Sox fan(atic), died the same year the Sox finally won the World Series? Probably, but I'd like to think she had something to do with it. Our trip to Italy was planned months before my mother died, but I raised many (many, many) a glass in a silent toast to the woman who never saw the need to leave her country for far away lands. And my husband and I had decided to start a family that year, but after I lost my mother I finally realized how important she was to me. We named our daughter in her honor. There is a picture of her in my daughter's room. She is in my thoughts every day.

Three years have done nothing to dull the pain of her death. I still remember hugging her thin frame to mine, wondering if my shoulders felt as frail as hers and knowing that, yes, they probably did since our bodies closely resembled each others. I remember the feel of her hand, the shape of her fingernails, the roundness of the knuckles in contrast to her long, thin fingers. And I remember missing her immediately upon her passing. That memory has not dulled. The wound has healed but the scar remains. And I go on.

But I carry her with me. Always.